Sony HDR-CX500V

Video Sharpness (10.19)

The Sony HDR-CX500V captured a sharp image in our testing, but we found the Canon HF S11 and JVC GZ-HM400 to be a bit sharper in bright light. The Sony managed a horizontal sharpness of 700 lw/ph and a vertical sharpness of 600 lw/ph, which are both very good scores. In comparison, we measured the horizontal sharpness of the JVC GZ-HM400 at 1000 lw/ph, and the Canon HF S11 hit 800 lw/ph horizontal. These numbers may sound like a huge difference, but visually it can be very difficult to notice the difference in sharpness for all these high-end camcorders (see the 100% crops for a good sharpness comparison). They can all capture very detailed images and none of them did poorly in our sharpness test, but the JVC and Canon were the best of the bunch in this test. More on how we test video sharpness.

Stabilization (12.15)

Sony has done very well in our stabilization tests this year, and the HDR-CX500V is one of the very best when it comes to stabilization. The camcorder managed to reduce 80% of the unwanted motion in our low shake test and 84% of the shake in our high shake test. These are impeccable numbers, particularly for a fairly compact camcorder like the CX500V. The camcorder is equipped with optical image stabilization and it offers two settings: Standard and Active. In our testing, we got nearly identical results when using the two modes. More on how we test stabilization.

The graphs above show how well the camcorder’s stabilization system works. The blue lines represent the HDR-CX500V’s motion with stabilization off, while the orange lines show the camcorder’s motion with stabilization engaged. You can see the camcorder produced slightly more vertical (y-axis) motion with stabilization turned on, but the horizontal (x-axis) movement was greatly decreased. In the video below you can see the CX500V’s stabilization in action. The camcorder did appear to have some trouble keeping focus during our stabilization test, which you should be able to see in the video below.

According to Sony, the Active stabilization mode on the CX500V should help correct rolling or tilting movement of the camcorder. We also noticed the camcorder’s wide angle changes slightly when Active mode is engaged (the image zooms in just a bit). This suggests Active mode uses a digital stabilization system to enhance the optical stabilization, although we’re not sure about this. What we do know is that Active mode did nothing to improve the HDR-CX500V’s stabilization results in our test.